Abstract

Personal knowledge management (PKM) is a conceptual framework applicable to personal knowledge. It is about taking an individual responsibility towards one’s competencies in the community where one belongs, be it an enterprise, a professional group, an institution, a class, and so forth. PKM implies developing methods and skills in using software and hardware technologies specifically applied to knowledge. These ideas are capturing much attention and analysis, but there are no books about PKM. PKM is an emerging discipline that sometimes challenges the principles of KM (Knowledge Management), from which it descends. To understand PKM we need to consider first the concepts of knowledge and knowledge management. Some widely shared beliefs are the following: • Knowledge is so valued today that our society defines itself as a “ knowledge society”; • Knowledge management is not a technology or a software solution, it is a discipline; • We are able to make distinctions among different forms of knowledge, that is, explicit, tacit and implicit knowledge, and see their transformations.